The Alpha's Last Choice.

Clara's POV

"Dr. Veyron, you really should consider getting a car with better headlights."

I look up from locking the clinic's back door to find Mrs. Patterson, my seventy-year-old neighbor, peering at me over the fence. Her gray hair is in curlers, and she's clutching a cup of tea despite the late hour.

"My Honda's headlights work just fine, Mrs. Patterson." I manage a tired smile. "You should be getting to bed. It's past eleven."

"So should you, dear. All this overtime isn't healthy for a young woman."

If only overtime was my biggest problem. It's been three days since Kael disappeared from my clinic, and I haven't slept more than a few hours each night. Every time I close my eyes, I see silver eyes and feel the phantom heat of his skin under my palm.

I'm losing my mind.

"Good night, Mrs. Patterson." I wave and head toward my car, parked under the broken streetlight at the end of the alley. The city keeps promising to fix it, but somehow it never happens.

The darkness feels heavier tonight. Oppressive. My footsteps echo off the brick walls as I fumble for my keys, and I can't shake the feeling that something is watching me.

"Get a grip, Clara," I mutter. "You're a doctor, not some silly girl afraid of shadows."

But the shadows seem to be moving.

I freeze, keys halfway to the car door. There... between the dumpster and the fire escape. Something large and low to the ground, eyes glowing in the dim light from Mrs. Patterson's porch.

A dog. Has to be a dog.

Except dogs don't grow that large. And they don't have eyes that burn like amber coals in the darkness.

"Nice doggy," I whisper, backing toward my car. "Stay right there."

It steps into the weak pool of light from the distant street lamp, and my blood turns to ice.

It's not a dog. It's a wolf. Massive, black as midnight, with lips pulled back to reveal teeth like white daggers. And it's not alone.

Two more emerge from the shadows... one gray, one brown with strange dark markings. They move with purpose, spreading out to surround my car, cutting off any escape route.

This isn't possible. There are no wolves in the city. No wolves anywhere within a hundred miles of here.

The black one takes another step forward, and a low growl rumbles from its throat. The sound raises every hair on my body and triggers some primal part of my brain that screams one word: run.

But there's nowhere to go.

"Stay back!" I fumble for my phone, fingers shaking so badly I can barely unlock it. "I'm calling 911!"

The gray wolf laughs. Actually laughs... a sound that's part animal, part human, and entirely terrifying.

"No need for that, little human," it says in a voice like gravel. "This won't take long."

I'm hallucinating. Wolves don't talk. This is some kind of stress-induced breakdown from everything that's happened this week.

"What do you want?" The question comes out as a whisper.

"You smell like him," the black one growls. "Like the Alpha. That makes you useful."

"I don't know what you're talking about..."

"Liar." The brown wolf circles closer, nostrils flaring. "His scent is all over you. In your skin, your hair. You've been claimed."

Claimed? "You're insane. All of you."

"Maybe," the gray one agrees. "But insane or not, you're coming with us."

They move as one, faster than anything should be able to move. I scream and throw myself backward, but there's nowhere to go except against my car door.

This is it. This is how I die. Torn apart by impossible talking wolves in an alley behind my own clinic.

Then the night explodes into violence.

Something huge and silver crashes into the black wolf, sending it flying into the brick wall with a wet crunch. The other two spin toward this new threat, snarling, but they're too slow.

Kael... because it is Kael, I know it with bone-deep certainty even though what I'm seeing defies reality, moves like liquid death. His clothes are gone, replaced by silver fur that seems to catch and reflect what little light there is. He's still human in shape but wrong in every other way, too large, too fast, too powerful. His face has elongated into something between man and beast, and his silver eyes burn with inhuman rage.

When he roars, the sound shakes the windows of nearby buildings.

The gray wolf lunges at him, claws extended. Kael meets the attack head-on, and I watch in sick fascination as his claws, longer and sharper than any human should possess, tear through his opponent like tissue paper. Blood sprays across the alley wall in dark arcs.

The brown wolf tries to run. Kael catches it in three bounds, lifting it off the ground by its throat. The crack of breaking bones echoes off the buildings, and the wolf goes limp.

The black wolf, the one who spoke, struggles to its feet. Blood pours from its mouth, and one of its legs hangs at an unnatural angle.

"You can't protect her forever," it gasps. "The others will come. They'll never stop hunting her."

"Let them come," Kael snarls in a voice that's more animal than human. "I'll kill them all."

"The pack won't stand for this. A human..."

Kael's hand closes around the wolf's neck, cutting off its words. "The pack will do what I tell them to do. I am Alpha."

He squeezes, and the wolf's eyes go wide with terror before going dark forever.

The alley falls silent except for my ragged breathing and the drip of blood from Kael's claws.

He turns to me, and I see my death in those silver eyes. Not intentional, he'd never hurt me, I know that somehow, but he's lost to the beast inside him. The man who saved me in the rain is gone, replaced by something wild and dangerous.

"Clara." My name on his lips sounds like a prayer and a curse. "You shouldn't have seen this."

I try to speak, to tell him it's okay, that I'm not afraid of him. But the words won't come. The world tilts sideways, and I realize I'm sliding down the car door toward the ground.

The last thing I see before the darkness takes me is Kael reaching for me, his face shifting back toward human, panic replacing the predatory gleam in his eyes.

Then everything goes black, and I fall into dreams filled with silver eyes and the taste of fear.